Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-03-11
TRUST IN GOD.
Rev. Dr.. Talmage's Sermon at
the Tabernacle.
King David Among the Gathites-Put YOU
Trust in God Now, and Do Not Wait Unit

Trust in God Now, and Dc Not Wait Until
Tomorrow.
After q running commentary o. appro-
pirate passages of Scripture, the Rev. I.
Dewitt Talmage, DID,, took for his text:
"And he changed his behavior before them,
and feigned himself mad in their hands,
and scrabbled on the doors of the gate and
let his spittle fall down upon his beard
I Sam, xxi, 10. He said:
There is one scene in the life of David
that you may not have pondered. You
have seen him with a harp, playing the
devil out of Saul; with q sling, smashing
the skull Of Goliath; with a sword, hacking
to pieces the Philistines; with a scepter,
ruling q vast realm; with a psalm, gather
ing all nations into do1ology; but in my
text, you have David playing the fool. He
has been anointed king, yet he is in exile
and passing incognito among the Gathites.
They begin to suspect who he is, and say:
It looks like him. Is not this the man
about whom they used to make poetry, and
about whom they composed a dance, 80
that the maidens of the city, Keeling
now on one foot and now on the other,
used to sing: Saul has slain his thous-
ands, but David has slain his tens
Of thousands Yes, it is very much
like David. It must be David.
It is David" David, to escape their hands,
pretends to be demented. He said within
himself: If I act crafty, then of course
these people will not injure me. No one
would be so much of a coward as to assault
a madman." So, one day, while these
Gathites are watching David with increased
suspicion, they see him standing by the
door running his hands meaninglessly up
and down the panels--scrabbling on the
door as though he would climb up, his
mouth wide open, drooling like an infant.
l suppose the boys of the streets threw
missiles at him; but the sober people of
the town said: "This is not fair. Do you
not see that he has lost his reason? Do
not touch this mailman. Hands off! hands
hibition he made of himself before all the
ages! There wal a majesty in King Lear's
madness after Regain and Gonerill, his
daughters, had persuaded him to Danish
their sister Cordelia, and all the friends of
the drama have been filled with that spec
tacle. The craziness of Meg Merrilles was
weird and imposing, and the most telling
passage in Walter SCOTS "Guy Manner
ing" There was a fascination about the
insanity of Alexander Cruden, who made
the best concordance of the Bible that the
world ever saw-made it between the mad
houses. Some time ago, while I was visit
ing the insane asylum on Blackwell's
Island, a demented woman came up to me
and said, in most tragic style:
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
But there was nothing grand, nothing
weird, nothing majestic, nothing sublime
about this stimulation on the part of David.
Instead of trusting in the Lord, as he had
on other occasions, he gathers before him
a vast audience of all generations that were
to come, and standing on that conspicuous
stage of history, in the presence of all the
ages, he impersonates the slavering idiot.
AND he changed his behavior before them,
and feigned himself mad in their hands,
and scrabbled at the door of the gate, and
let his Spite fall down upon his beard"
Taking the behavior Of David as a sug-
gestion. I wish to tell you how many of the
wise, and the brave, and the regal
times play the fool. And in the first place,
l remark that those men as badly play the
fool as this man Of the text, who in any
crisis of life take their case out of the hand
OF God. David, in this case, acted as
though there were no God to lift him out
of the predicament. What q contrast be-
tween his behavior, when this brave little
man stood up in front of the giant
ten feet in height, and looking into his
face, said: "Thou contest to me with a
sword. and with a spear, and with q shield;
but l come to thee in the name of the
Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of
Israel, whom thou hast defed. This day
will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand.
and 1 will smite thee, and take thine head
from thee, and l will give the carcasses of
the hosts Of the Philistines this day unto
the fowls of the air. and to the wild beasts
of the earth, that all the earth may knew
that there is a God in Israel"-between
that time and this time, when he debased
himself, and bedraggled his manhood, and
affected insanity in order that he might es-
cape from the grip OF the Gathites. In the
n case he played the hero. In the other
case he played the fool. So does every
man who, in the great crisis of life, takes
his case out of the hand of God. The life
of the most insignificant man in this house
is too vast for any human management.
One time, returning from the West, 1 very
easily got on the locomotive while passing
over the plains, and talked with the en-
glneer; but coming on toward the Allegheny
Mountains, I thought I would like to sit on
the locomotive as it came down from the
mountains amid that most wonderful seen
rey on this continent. l asked the engineer
IT l might ride. but he courteously denied
me, for there the grade is SO steep. and so
winding; and SO perllous, that he must not
have any one On the locomotive who NAV
divert his attention when eye, and hand,
and foot, and brain must be concentrated.
ready for the most sudden emergency,
Well, my friends, life is SO steep. and SO
perilous, and so exposed to sudden sur
prises, that none but the Lord Almighty
can guide and engineer it, and our disasters
from the fact that we want to get up
and help the Lord to manage the train.
Keep off the engine! Be willing to let God
pull you where he wants to pull YOU. You
have no right for an instant to surrender
your sanity and manhood as David surren-
dered his. Put your trust in God, as he
will take you through and over the noun
tains. | very much suspect that all the
enterprises that were ever car
ried on. and all the successful lives that
have ever been lived, have been fully sur
rendered to God. When the girl Victoria
was awakened in the night and told hat the
throne OF Great Britain was hers, she said
to the prelate informing her: II ask your
prayers" and then and there they knelt
down and prayed. Do you wonder that
though since that time all the thrones of
Europe have fallen or been fear ully
shaken, hers stands as firm as the day she
assembled it; and in every country under the
sun, wherever an En-: lishman hears that
name pronounced, he feels like waving his